


What's Happening to We?

by hopeboiwonder



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Falling In Love, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Lovers, This is very AU, everyone is in their 30's and 40's, hunk is 42, keith is 43, keith is a mountain man, older!voltron characters, post canon season 2 - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeboiwonder/pseuds/hopeboiwonder
Summary: After the world practically crumbles around them, the Defenders of the Universe disassemble and go their separate ways, leaving Allura and Coran to find a new team to pilot Voltron.With his friends going back to their respective families, and none left of his own, Keith takes to isolation in the mountains. His own farm and wide open space to keep his mind clear. Nothing but his dog, Red, to keep him company; and though he wouldn't have it any other way, the ache of separation from his friends is strong.So why can't he talk to them?To him?To Hunk.Keith and Hunk have always had a remarkable pull to each other but-- that was over long ago, and he can't bring himself to be selfish enough to ask for it again. No matter how much he craves it.





	What's Happening to We?

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this quite a while ago, and I love it dearly so I'm finally posting it.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it, sorry my description is a little lazy...I promise it's worth the read, especially for all those Heith shippers out there.  
> I based it on a song by SZA, it's called "Warm Winds", Featuring Isaiah Rashad.
> 
> Enjoy, and feel free to tell me what you think!
> 
> Edit: there's some art I did for this at the bottom!

The sky had already fallen down-- once.

 

Keith had seen it. He still dreams about it. He dreams of sparks flying from severed wires, tearing through the interior of a ship groaning with external strain and booming with the sounds of battle even through the metal shell, his eyes alight with the collateral around him and in his wake of destruction, in the chaos… His mind churning with the fierce emotions of his team, anger, anxiety, fear, hope, surprise...the same way the sky lit up with offensive purple beams. 

 

The fleet that attacked earth never once drew back, and only let up to recharge and resurge. They refused to leave; not for days, for weeks, for months.

 

Cycles of calm were the worst part. That was when Keith watched human crews fleetingly try to rebuild defenses, watched them watch him and his teammates for what to do next. Awaiting orders. As though the paladins would know inherently how to survive the war. What counters could they put in place before the next wave? What could they do before the next attack began? They could hold on tight, give it all they had, and fight.

 

For their lives. For their families. For the human race as a whole.

 

There was nothing else, and so men fell. They burst. They were blown away by the superior technology and the mass of troops the Galra sent in. Casualties grew every second they fought, and Keith remembered every face he saw lying in the dirt. Battered, bloody, singed….cold.Every soldier who had someone waiting at home for them. People who deserved to live.

 

While he had no one. While he didn't.

 

Keith would always wake with panic rising rapidly in his chest, body heaving for breath even though the air around him was free and clear...unlike the remembrance of recycled oxygen in the  interior of the vast ship he’d been aboard for nearly thirty years. Atmosphere that was clean, but stale.It was that long before he was able to breath real, fresh air; smell as rain pummeled the ground and upset the sweet, earthy scent of petrichor, feel the cold in his lungs as the temperature dropped at night, unhurriedly drew in breath and exhaled warm puffs of condensation. Yet even as he took in one quick, shaking breath after another it didn’t feel right. He still pictured himself aboard the castle-- in the cockpit of his lion...catapulting through the stars faster than the speed of light. Anywhere but in the house he’d lived in now for a full year; in the quiet countryside where there were no loud sounds, no people to interrogate him. Where it was just him, and a big dog named Red, supposedly safe from the broad expanse of space.

 

And the medal he was given for his team's sacrifice in the war. Shiny and gold, and staring him in the face every day. Haunting him with vivid images he couldn't escape no matter how many times he sat down to talk about it with his supposed professional. It would take time, she told him, and he believed her...but it didn't help him now.

 

What he needed now was…

 

Who he needed was someone, anyone, who had been through what he had.

 

Lance, or Pidge, or Hunk. 

 

Hunk…

  
  
  


The panic had settled but he was still lost in thought. He'd grown fairly adept at calming himself now...but he wished he could stop it altogether. 

 

Wishful thinking was just that.

  
  
  


In the mornings he sat with a cup of coffee and stared out the back window of his house, overlooking a serene lake in the distance, but which he couldn’t reach on foot. A deep valley before it with cows that tottered down to feed every day at 7am.

 

In the afternoons he contemplated leaving, venturing from his too-quiet home to check on his chickens. 

 

During the evenings he would sit on his front porch and watch the sky shift in color; trying not to imagine it ablaze. 

 

Days slipped by in an endless ream of nothingness, of quietness, and something else that was nameless and empty. He grocery shopped on Sundays. He cooked for himself, occasionally gave his dog his scraps. Everything was tidy, though his possessions were few and it was easy to keep out of disarray. He waited...for nothing.

 

He waited for something.

  
  


Keith wakes at 6am one morning, and walks out to gather the eggs from his birds before the magpies can steal any. The sun barely peeks over the rolling hills, and the air is still crisp; carrying the scent of dew, and the lake down valley. It’s too chilly not to wear a jacket just yet, but he can tell the weather will be nice today; just warm enough that he can mow his lawn and think about weeding his small garden. 

 

His chickens tut after him curiously as he steps into their pen, and offer up strange attentive sound as he gathers up eggs. He hushes them, tells them they have plenty of food. Maybe he’ll give them some lettuce later.

 

Red starts barking outside and startles him into dropping an egg. Guess he can leave that one for the magpies. Red barks at the mailman when he drives up to drop off Keith’s paper every morning, and barks at the strangely friendly neighbor from down the road, who walks her dog too close to Keith’s fence and sometimes talks to him over the gate, but usually she quiets after they pass. A few minutes at most. Keith doesn’t think twice at first-- But after he exits the coop she’s...still barking. He lifts a brow and wanders toward the sound, seeing her prancing by the gate. He keeps stepping, though whoever it is she’s barking at is obscured by the cottonwood tree just before his driveway, and he doesn’t see him until he steps around it.

 

Dark skin, long brown hair, tall and brawny and big as ever, and talking in a sugary voice to Red-- who isn’t angry, but delighted to see him. He gets closer and sees the scars on his neck and face, one over his right eye that Keith recognizes with a drop of something heavy in his stomach. A familiar, surreally handsome face looks up at him and smiles; the broad expanse of his upper lip curving with the pull of it, over his pearly teeth. He still has that dimple on one cheek.

 

“Hunk?” Keith murmurs quizzically, realizing how he must look; a mess, having forgone his morning coffee thus far, neglecting to dress in anything other than a cotton hoodie, his loose pajama pants, and boots. “Hunk-- What are you doing here?”

 

Hunk moves to lift the latch on Keith’s gate, and steps in to greet red first, dropping the bag he had slung high on his shoulder to bend into a kneeling position and ruffle up the fur at Red’s neck. “Oh it’s grumpy girl! Who’s the best grumpy girl EVER? It’s you, Red!” He’s laughing, a deep, gravelly, breathy thing that threads its way into Keith’s thoughts just the way he remembers it… To embroider his soul with fine, familiar warmth.

 

Keith admires the swell of his arms, more muscular than he remembers, and his broad chest, and his wide, round stomach, and everything about him that’s just the same. His deep brown skin, and the stripe of pale white along his forearm...that keith knows stretches all the way to his shoulder. The fall of his hair without the orange headband around his forehead, that instead keeps it all back in a neat knot at the base of his neck. “Hunk…”

 

“Sorry...sorry.” The man stands, much to Red’s dismay, as his hands fall away from her fur and out of her reach. “I know it’s early, and I didn’t tell you I was coming but...I thought...y’know…” Hunk looks him over, good eye trailing up Keith’s form briefly and then landing on the basket of eggs in his hand; his brow quirks just so. He seems stifled for words for a moment; opening and closing his mouth once or twice. “No one’s heard from you in...months. I was getting worried, we all were, and you know how Pidge is, I thought I would just...pop by and see you--”

 

“Taking a plane from Hawaii isn’t exactly popping by in the typical sense…”

 

Hunk takes in a quick breath, barely audible. It sticks in his chest. “You’re mad?”

 

Keith breathes out a sigh on Hunk’s behalf and bites into his bottom lip to stay himself of whatever feeling is prickling at the back of his mind, his eyes remain downcast for a moment, “No, of course not. I’m...It’s good to see you. Great, even. I just…” Something about Hunk being here, showing up in the early hours of the morning, makes him have to swallow something down; something bitter and terrible that he’d never realized before. A realisation that he should have come to forever ago, but always pushed away. A realisation he should have remedied.

 

Keith had been lonely.

 

“Well, I don’t need to stay long, if you’d rather I left-- I can get a hotel in town and--”

 

“Don’t be stupid!” A surge of the same fearful, odd emotion rises in his chest and takes him over for a moment, thankfully bringing him out of his quiet stupor. “You flew in from Hawaii...stay as long as you want, Hunk! Stay here. I’ve got a spare bedroom.” Two of them...actually. “Don’t waste your money on me.”

 

Hunk picks up his bag out of the dirt and hikes it up onto his shoulder while Keith talks, suddenly looking stricken as he meets Keith’s eyes. “You really think it’s a waste?”

 

“I-- I’m sure you’d much rather be on the beach with Lance or-- in the city with Pidge. It’s a lot more fun...is what I mean.”

 

“Keith.”

 

“God- I’m sorry, I’m just...I haven’t had company in a long time. Come inside okay? I’ll make some coffee...you look tired.”

 

Hunk’s eyes light up just a touch, “Coffee sounds great right now.” 

  
  


The interior of his house feels strange now that there’s someone else inside it besides him, and Red. It feels smaller, and a little less welcoming (like the inane security blanket it always seemed to be when he was alone). Lacking in decor except for a few things he received as gifts and just didn’t have the heart to tuck away. Hunk sat down at Keith’s kitchen table, in the spot Keith usually sat and stared blankly out the window for hours while he ate dinner or did his best to wake up in the morning, while Keith shuffled about to get a pot of coffee brewing. Something stirred in his chest as he brought down two mugs instead of one.

 

Hunk scratched his chin, and the sound of his facial hair under his nails was interesting and new. Keith paused, holding a paper filter in his hands, turning it between his fingers as he thought over the sound; replaying it in a loop.

 

“You good?”

 

Keith didn’t jump, but he did startle just a little when Hunk spoke, sending the filter to the floor. “I--Yeah, I’m good.” He knelt down to pick it up and paused there for a moment, “Your voice is deeper.”

 

“So’s yours.”

 

“It’s-- just different, I was expecting…”

 

“Baby Hunk voice?” He cleared his throat and did his best falsetto. “Is this how you remember me, Keith? I am offended.”

 

Keith laughed, shoulders bunching up with it, and came up with the filter in his hands; inspecting it quickly before popping it into the coffee pot. “I remember a lot about you, especially your voice. It’s just nice to hear it again.”

 

“Could’ve called, y’know. I haven’t changed my number.”

 

Having picked up the glass receptacle for the coffee pot, he suddenly let it slip through his fingers, landing with a CLACK against the counter. “Crap. Yeah...I know...I should have. I’m sorry.”

 

Hunk was standing next to him now, and Keith hadn’t even heard his chair move. He was inspecting the glass to see if it was broken. “Don’t be. I understand. It’s why I’m here. It’s been an adjustment for all of us...” Hunk nudged him aside softly and smiled at him, turning on the sink and measuring the flow into the glass. “I really needed to see you, face to face, and just make sure you were okay. Plus, I was feeling a little isolated.”

 

Keith watched him numbly, silently confused by the image of the familiar man moving about his kitchen. He forgot what he’d been doing before, and sat down at the table in his usual spot, pulled his knees up to his chest and just...watched Hunk; the splotchy, pale pink at the back of his neck, the dip between his shoulderblades, shirt bunching at his lower back. He realized there was something tied around his neck (jewlery that he hadn’t noticed while Hunk was facing him), and he was wearing a black long sleeve, pushed up over his forearms, some loose, gray athletic pants that had a white stripe down the side...black and white cross trainers that just barely matched everything. He looked comfortable. Keith remembered his chest was bare underneath his pullover.

 

“So, chickens?” Hunk spoke again, glancing at Keith over his shoulder.

 

“Oh, yeah. They’re my girls.” Keith says, smiling at one corner of his mouth. “I’m planning on getting some ducks too.”

 

“Duck eggs are great for baking!” Hunk mentions, finishing something up and then turning bodily to Keith. “Where’d you put the eggs? I’ll wash them for you.” 

 

“You don’t have to do that--”

 

“I know, but I’m already over here, and we’re waiting on coffee anyway.”

 

“They’re on the counter by the door.”

 

Hunk is fascinating, because he moves with more control than Keith has ever seen, more than Keith seems to be capable of (he feels like he used to be, like he should still be capable of it). These days it seems like everything just falls from his hands. He gets lost in thought, and everything...just...slips…

 

Before he even realizes he’s zoning out, Hunk is making noise again, humming to himself, and Keith hones in on the sound. Deep and airy, an improvised tune, or maybe an old song that only he knows. Either way, Keith is captivated by it. He closes his eyes, pictures fingertips ghosting over the back of his hand from underneath a table, a hug around his shoulders, and his arm tucked comfortably around a wide waist. Warmth spreading over him at the imaginary contact, as though it was happening just as he remembered it.

 

He snaps to when Hunk sets something down in front of him. “Thought you were falling asleep on me for a second.”

 

“I could have, honestly.” Keith smiles.

 

Something nameless crosses Hunk’s expression, idle pleasure, happiness. Keith doesn’t know, but he looks serene. “Coffee.” He tips his head down in a soft gesture, to the cup sitting in front of Keith, and Keith realizes Hunk is standing directly in front of him.

 

After he notices, Hunk is already sliding away to sit across from him, holding a mug between his palms and sipping.

 

“Are we gonna talk about how you’re a country boy now?”

 

“Hunk, I was born in Texas.”

 

“Yeah but now you’re playin’ the part! Goin’ back to y’er roots.” Hunk drawls in a terrible southern accent.

 

“I don’t sound like that.” 

 

Hunk snickers, “Sometimes you do, and it's adorable.”

 

Keith rolls his eyes, but smiles anyway, enamored with Hunk’s gentle flattery.

 

“I missed you.” Hunk says after a period of silence.

 

Keith looks up at him, and regrets meeting his eyes… because there's something there that makes him ache with guilt. “I missed you too, Hunk. More than you know.”

 

There is another small silence, in which Hunk and Keith both take deep swigs of coffee. Hunk relaxes back in his chair and smiles, something wry appearing on his expression. Keith laughs at the look, hiding his smiling mouth behind his coffee mug. “What?”

 

“Just so you know, we’re gonna have to group call with Lance and Pidge at some point, so I can prove your existence. They were about ready to Storm The Fortress.” 

 

“Oh god.”

 

“Aka, Lance was going to bring mama Sanchez.”

 

“Them’s the big guns…” Keith snorts, “That’s fine. We can call them. I wouldn’t want to upset Mrs. Sanchez.”

 

“And Lance?”

 

“Oh, no. I love to upset Lance.”

 

“Wicked lil southern boy.”

  
  
  


Hunk’s visit goes, without fail, like everything with Hunk seems to go. It’s easy, free, relaxing; slow, and tepid and true. Nothing is ever too much, he doesn’t force his company on Keith, but Keith wants to be around him. He wants to watch the light in his honey eyes every time Keith says something off handed to make him laugh. He wants to feel the tinge of warmth each time they accidentally brush up against each other and he wants...for it not to be an accident anymore. 

 

The third day Hunk has been here, Keith falls into an unknowing rhythm. Eating and talking and cleaning, teaching Hunk how to care for the birds, going on long walks with Red, sitting on the porch together and sipping ginger tea in the evenings, watching television until they’re both ready to retire to their separate bedrooms. And while he still panics, it feels easier to bring himself back down to earth knowing there’s someone he can wake up just next door. Someone he trusts and admires and....

 

Someone he loves.

 

Hunk is making breakfast when Keith remembers how they were before; how similar their routine had been then. When Voltron had first been sprung upon them, and their lives had begun anew; when they were naive, and when they thought they could save everyone. He remembers often, but at this moment it seems...different. Perhaps it’s the light of the kitchen, or his lack of REM sleep, or his second cup of coffee already half gone...but when he thinks about Hunk then, something deeply calming floods his body.

 

Keith watches Hunk flipping blueberry pancakes and turning sausage, and leans his chin on one palm, elbow resting on the table as he once again admires Hunk in his entirety. Head to toe, in his sheer perfection, unknowingly keeping Keith afloat amidst an ocean of self doubt and fear. The physical manifestation of the sun itself.

 

Hunk’s hair comes down between his shoulderblades in its longest chunks, and where it used to be a consistent, soft brown all the way through, it’s now littered with gray hairs. Keith still thinks he looks wonderful (hell, he’s got gray hair’s of his own now). The patches of pale pink along the backs of his arms used to be much thinner, and Keith wonders idly if the marks around his navel have grown as well, and though he doesn’t ask he does secretly yearn to admire all those unique discolorations; the ones Hunk used to be so unsure of. Hunk is also taller and denser than he used to be, more muscular in his arms and legs. His hands are rougher and callous worn. One of his eyes no longer has the same gold hue as the other, and a streaking scar runs across it that always jarrs Keith to his core… Because Keith remembers all his scars down to the nick on his pinky that Hunk told him he got in the 8th grade from attempting to climb a tree.

 

Hunk was, and is, the most compassionate person that Keith had ever encountered. A martyr who would lay down his life for anyone, and especially his friends.

 

The scar on his eye telling the tale of how he’d once thrown himself in the way of an attack meant for Keith.

 

Suddenly Keith wants to apologize, wants to take it away, wishes he’d been wounded instead of Hunk-- Carried the burden he deserved, instead of his friend...his teammate...his…

 

“Hunk--” Keith blurts the man’s name before he can stop himself, trying to swallow the dryness in his throat, wet it down and stave it.

 

“Mm?” Hunk responds with a light hum, and cracks an egg onto the skillet still sizzling with a number of different things. 

 

Keith just wanted to know Hunk was actually here, and he wasn’t continually imagining the warm presence ahead of him. 

 

“Do you think we made a difference? In the world...in...the universe? Was it wrong to stop?”

 

Hunk visibly tenses, and glances over his shoulder, eyes lingering over Keith’s for a moment as though to gather up his thoughts. He turns back to their breakfast. “God, I hope so, but you know what…? We’d been at it for...what was it? 26 years, earth time? We couldn’t carry on forever.”

 

“Sometimes I think we could have done more.”

 

Hunk’s shoulders relax. “Yeah…? I think about that too. I think we all do. Doesn’t mean we could.”

 

Hunk meant that even if they’d planned on being part of Voltron until they were too old, too worn to continue, it didn’t mean they were obligated. With the imminent threat out of the way, it was Allura who gave them the option to disband, and it was Keith who said he couldn’t lead anymore. It was Keith who looked at his team...at Lance’s prosthetic legs, at Pidge who had lived more than half of their life with catastrophic weight on their shoulders, at Hunk’s bad eye and the scars that littered all their bodies...and decided he couldn’t keep going like this; not with the flashes of all their plights in his mind, of dragging each of them to a healing pod in turn, of always somehow being the one without deep wounds marring his flesh and permanently ailing his body.

 

He couldn’t continue knowing it was his fault.

 

“We were all ready. No one can save the whole universe, Keith. Not all at once.”

  
  
  


That evening, they sit out on the porch and watch the sun set. Red nuzzles into their resting hands and garners all the attention she possibly can from them, and when it starts to get chilly they head inside; with the sky beginning to purple behind them, darkening over the foothills. Hunk cooks dinner, some kind of pasta Keith has never heard of, but very much enjoys. Keith rinses the dishes and places them in the washer, hand washes pots and pans while Hunk wipes down the counters and the table. After they’re finished, full to bursting and relaxed beyond measure, Keith washes his hands, dries them on the towel hanging by the sink, and Hunk moves to rinse out the rag he’d been using, hovering just beside him. 

Orbit.

 

Their shoulders brush. 

Contact.

 

Without thinking...Keith leans into the touch with a sigh and a flutter of his eyelids; silently relishing the warmth there. He doesn’t move as the man washes his hands, and instead hands him the towel to dry them once he’s finished, watching Hunk turn to look at him and smile, shaking out his wet hands and then patting away the excess wet. Their eyes meet as he does.

 

Keith sees wheels turning. He wonders what Hunk sees.

 

“Keith, can I hug you?” His voice has dropped to a whisper, a murmur, barely a tone to his voice.

 

“Yeah, of course…”

 

Hunk hangs up the hand towel, arm reaching beyond Keith and form hovering in his personal space, then turns fully to him, lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulls him in against his body; arms winding around him. One hand on the curve of his back, the other just beneath his shoulderblades; palms so warm that Keith wants to sink into their source and be nearer. Near as possible. It’s a hesitant thing, but Keith wraps his arms around Hunk’s waist and sighs audibly after a breath; a note of profound pleasure in his voice as he relaxes. Reciprocation. He feels complete, feels safe, and Hunk’s arms draw him in a little tighter as he does; the hand between his shoulders coming up to the back of Keith’s neck to gingerly rub circles there with his thumb, underneath all that stark black hair.

 

“You remember the first time we held each other like this?” Hunk asks into the quiet air; the only other sound around them being the orchestra of crickets outside. His cheek lays against the crown of Keith’s head.

 

Keith makes a sound like a laugh, but his eyes are watering as a powerful emotion jolts through him and threatens to make him buckle under its weight. He knows where it stems from, but he doesn’t know why it hits him all at once. “You think I would forget?” His voice breaks somewhere in the middle. “It was when you...told me our bond was stronger than everyone else’s...that there was something you wanted to figure out about it...” 

 

“You remember what it was?”

 

Keith presses his face into Hunk’s chest, shutting his eyes tight and drawing in a deep breath because right now...he can’t reply. He bites his lips and imagines it. When they were half the age they are now, when they were so infatuated that everyone could feel it in the bond. Keith’s heart would ache horribly, and Lance would complain. (Oh my GOD, Keith! Get it together, man!) When Hunk’s anxiety over it would flood them all and send them either spiralling into giggle fits, or nervous panic. And they fought it, fought it, fought it...until it was inescapable.

 

“I was in love with you.” Hunk smiled against his hair, he could feel it. “And I wanted to know if you were in love with me too.”

 

Keith pulls back a ways to look up into Hunk’s face, ignoring the cool wet on his own cheeks as he blinks away the tears building in his eyes. “I was...I had been for a long time...I think I told you.” One corner of his mouth quirks up, remembering how he’d been bursting to tell Hunk something, anything and all he needed was that little push. “You cried into my shoulder.”

 

Keith gazes into both of Hunk’s beautiful eyes, one milky white and the other pale gold in the moonlight that streaks through the window. He looks between them, searching. They’re watering too, but they don’t spill over as messily as Keith’s do. “I’d loved you for a long time...Then, and now...and that won’t change.” He moves the hand at Keith’s neck to cup his jaw instead, slowly brushing his thumb over Keith’s cheek and then sliding it further back into his hair; Keith can feel the callouses on each ridge of his fingers as they lightly graze his ear. “I’ll understand if you-- ...if you’re not ready...to pick up where we left off, but…”

 

“I am.” Keith whispers, “I am...I’ve thought about it since it ended, I’ve thought about you since we went our separate ways-- I just…” He swallows, “I’m scared.”

 

“You have every right to be.” Hunk smiles down at him, “You’ve lost a lot. We both went through hell, and it’s hard to recover from that, but I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to. I’m here to help you and-- Honestly...I need help too.”

 

“From me?”

 

“From you.”

 

“Hunk-- I’ll do anything I can. You can stay here as long as you want…” He wants to say...please don’t leave. “This is a good place, y’know? To clear your head...and all that.”

 

“Wouldn’t you rather be alone…?”

 

“No. Not anymore.”

 

“And here I was worried you’d run me out.”

 

Keith chuckles softly, “I would never…”

 

“Just one more question…”

 

“Yes?”

 

Keith watches him wet his bottom lip, “Can I kiss you…?” 

 

And Keith nods, leaning up to get closer until Hunk lays his hands on his shoulders to stop him, his palms moving to cradle Keith’s face, fingers splayed over his ears, his neck, in his hair, thumbs ghosting over the skin of his cheekbones, and one wandering further to trace the outline of his lips. “Let me come to you.” He requests, and Keith obliges. He kisses his thumb before he can help it; admiring it’s rough quality, letting his eyes droop as it slips away to the corner of his mouth; where there’s a crescent shaped scar at his bottom lip. The way Hunk touches him feels so tentative and practiced; unbelievably slow, almost painfully. Keith has an airy feeling rising through him, as though he was weightless in space.

 

What should he do with his hands?

 

“You’re shaking…” Hunk whispers, worry settling into his expression, “Am I going too fast…?”

 

Keith blinks at him, and lifts one hand to lay over Hunk’s. “No...Just nervous. I thought we’d never get to do this again.”

 

Hunk dips down and brings their faces closer, and Keith squeezes his hand, inhaling sharply as the peaks of their upper lips brush against each other. “Me either.” Hunk says, and Keith parts his lips just as Hunk does, closing his eyes and feeling the blessed warmth that encompasses him as Hunk finally closed the fraction of distance between them; landing a simple kiss and mouthing silent words there that Keith reciprocates timidly. 

 

He tastes like something sweet, and earthy, rosewater… aloe… and then, something salty and wet just before he pulls away. Keith opens his eyes. Hunk’s cheeks shine with tears; sparkling from the barest of light coming in through the window. “Hunk-- Are you alright?”

 

Hunk shivers and bends down a little further to press his face into Keith’s shoulder, arms once again winding around his middle. Keith lifts his own to wrap around his neck, smoothing his fingers through the man’s soft hair; fibers bunching under his palms. Familiarity blossoms in his chest.

 

“Didn’t...didn’t even realize how bad I needed to see you till I got here…I've been trying to keep my cool, but damn...” Hunk laughs breathily, “It hurts to think about...all that time we missed.”

 

Keith swallows the lump in his throat before he speaks. We can still...we can still make up for the lost time. I’m here now.”

 

“I dreamed about you…” Hunk chokes out suddenly, “I dreamed...that you…”

 

“I know...me too...All the time.” Keith finishes for him, “But it’s not real...it’s not going to happen. We’re safe now.”

 

“We’re safe now…”

  
  
  


They stay close the following day. Keith persuades Hunk to help him with a few projects outside...finish staining an arbor he'd built over his garden, and pull up weeds. When they go inside that evening, they shower up and settle in to marathon a few movies.

 

They eat popcorn for dinner.

 

“This movie is garbage, Keith.” Hunk says from behind him, where he's laying out across the couch, Keith tucked against his front and using his arm as a pillow. Hunk idly twirls the long dark locks of Keith’s hair as they watch.

 

“Its not! It's a cinematic masterpiece.” He argues, tossing some popcorn over his shoulder and smirking as Hunk yelps. 

 

Hunk wiggles his fingers at Keith’s sides in retaliation and Keith jolts with sudden laughter at the sensation, trying his best to squirm away from Hunk’s grasp and failing ultimately. He jostles the bowl of popcorn and Keith gasps, “Hey, hey! Cut it out Hunk! I almost spilled my popcorn.”

 

Hunks revenge is sweet. He stops for the moment, keeping his hand on Keith’s hip; where his shirt has ridden up enough that Hunk can smooth his thumb along the blade of soft skin beneath. Impossibly warm hands sending a shiver down Keith’s spine. “Aaaalright alright. I'll quit. But don't throw any more of your precious popcorn at me.”

 

“Only if you quit insulting the movie.”

 

“But its so bad--”

 

“Well, you can pick the next one.”

 

Hunk picks Clash of the Titans, which Keith insists isn't nearly as good as the live action speed racer Hunk teased him so relentlessly about before. Though, he doesn't see it through to the end to prove his point. He makes it about ten minutes in before his eyes are too heavy to stay open, and he slowly nods off; popcorn forgotten on the coffee table, and a warm hand smoothing up and down his side to help him on into dreamland.

 

In a fleeting moment of consciousness some time later, Keith registers Hunk’s face staring down at him, and the feeling of being suspended in air until something soft hits his back, and something light and warm covers his body. 

 

When he wakes fully later, it's because of a dream.

 

A nightmare.

 

One that causes him to spring forward;  gasping and glancing around his room in a panic-- He doesn't remember how he got here, but he doesn't remember where he was before either. On a tattered old couch in his desert shack? In a tight, freezing pod aboard the castle of lions? On a hard pseudo mattress in some strange alien ship?

 

Or in his new house in the foothills roughly thirty years later, in a body barely the same as it used to be, and a mind that would never be the same at all.

 

It takes him a full hour to call down. 

 

He changes out of sweat soaked clothes and wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water once he does, but stops at the sink and ends up staring blankly outside. His eyes droop, and his mind swirls in a thoughtful circle, around a phrase that keeps him somewhat centered. A lyric.

 

He murmurs something to himself, a song he remembers from a long time ago.

 

Make me a bird, so I can fly far,

Far, far away.

 

“Keith? You okay?” A hand lays upon his shoulder, a voice sounds quietly from behind him, bringing him to his senses some indeterminable amount of time later. Minutes? Hours?

 

“Hunk--” Keith replies in a whisper, turning toward him without looking into the man's face, and pressing fully against him; suddenly holding on like his life depended on it, like it had been another 2 years since they'd seen each other.

 

“Bad dreams?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Me too.” Hunk whispers to him, bringing his arms around Keith and carding his fingers through his hair. “Wanna sleep in my bed?”

 

“Yeah.” Keith answers again, realizing that Hunk’s bare skin is against his cheek; he moves to lay a single kiss against Hunk’s exposed chest, lips sticking dryly and as a soft sound is uttered onto the air. “That'd be good.”

  
  
  


I recall your soul had a taste like,

Gardens,

Flowers,

Warm winds.

  
  
  


“What do you want for breakfast?” Hunk asks him the following morning, both of them having already woken up in each other's arms hours ago and laid there ushering each other into full wakefulness, words spoken softly in the limited space between their bodies (voices thick with sleep), having already risen together and neglected to dress fully (pajamas would do just fine as they didn't have anywhere to be but home).

 

Keith sits at the table with a mug of coffee cradled between his palms, eyes focused on something far beyond the window, and the porch, and the valley with the cows across the way, and the lake on the horizon. "Scrambled eggs would be nice."

 

"Bacon? Mushrooms? Cheese?"

 

"All of the above."

 

"Good choice."

 

Hunk cooks, because Hunk is good at cooking. Hunk likes to cook. He sings while he does and sometimes his songs bleed into other songs. (First he's singing in the rain, dreaming of a white christmas, and next thing you know he's off to see the wonderful wizard of oz). Keith keeps things tidy as he does so, when he's not staring off out the window, he rises and wanders about, cleaning up the small messes that Hunk leaves behind while he cooks. 

 

He moves to place the bowl Hunk had used to scramble the eggs into the dish washer, and Hunk scrapes their food onto two plates; the sound of it, metal on metal, makes Keith pause in step. For a moment it sounded like the echo of his bayard puncturing the metal shell of a Galran droid, like the thick lining of a ship flaying under Red's jawblade, of-- metal cutting through armor; Hunk crying out, Lance shouting, Pidge screaming, Shiro--

 

With a clatter, the bowl had slipped from his hands and shattered on the ground, and Keith, stupidly, moved to step out of the way, gasping as searing pain entered the arch of his foot. "Fuck, fuck-fuck."

 

Hunk dropped everything, spun in place, and Keith saw him through the warp of tears in his eyes; stooping to pick up porcelain, and using a cloth to grasp loose shards. Keith remained entirely still, foot suspended beside his other ankle, something hot trickling between his first two toes, shaking and covering his mouth with one hand. 

 

Hunk, he noticed, was shaking too. As he threw away the offending pieces of broken glass, he finally turned his full attention to Keith and laid his warm hands upon his shoulders; fingers gripping blessedly tight, reminding Keith that he was here, he was home. Hunk was home. Hunk was here.

 

Keith didn't do anything, he stood, stared blankly at Hunk's chest and blinked tears from his eyes; hand unmoving over his mouth. And Hunk moved him in Keith's stead, ushered him closer to the kitchen counter, lifted him by his under arms to sit upon the edge, and lifted his foot to see the wound there. Something flickered in Hunk's eyes, Keith watched him, but he didn't pause. He merely rose, disappearing from Keith's sight for several moments, and returning with a few items cradled in his arms; to be laid out on the floor in front of Keith.

 

Silence grew to be comfortable, almost as soon as Hunk placed his hands on Keith's skin; a wide, warm palm lifting his calf, while the other prepared an alcohol swab. The only word uttered was a few whispered 'sorry's as Keith hissed at the sensation of Hunk removing the shard from his foot and dabbing liberally with the swab once he'd staunched the bleeding. He wrapped it moments later, still holding Keith's calf in his hands, and Keith spotted the wet rag on the floor, damp with his own blood.

 

He sobbed.

 

But Hunk didn't move from where he was knelt on the floor. He listened to Keith cry, and didn't shush him, simply smoothing his palm up and down Keith's calf, squeezing comfortingly. Keith wiped his eyes on the back of his wrist, dabbed the dribble from his nose on the collar of his shirt, and kept his gaze away from Hunk; embarrassed by his lack of poise, by how he froze in the face of what could hardly be described as danger. But Hunk said nothing. 

 

Keith felt the press of something warm against the interior of his ankle, which caused him to finally glance back to the man before him, beneath him. Hunk, with eyes closed, laid his lips once again at the center of Keith's shin, palm rising to the back of Keith's knee and thumb sweeping over the side of it as Hunk landed another kiss to the cap of it. 

 

Hunk used to, when they were younger, kiss his way from Keith's fingertips, to his lips...making his way in slow motion, back down his body, or wherever Keith needed him most. Wherever Keith needed to be reminded that he was human, flesh and bone, and beautiful, despite his wounds...his scars...his fears. Those weren't what made him, they were merely a part of him.

 

Breakfast as forgone, intimacy rode in it's place, and they woke again in late afternoon.

  
  
  
  
  


At dusk one evening, Keith realized Hunk had already been with him for three months. They'd spoken to Lance and Pidge a handful of times, and Hunk's family once or twice; all of them wondering how long Hunk planned on visiting, and what they'd been doing since he'd arrived.

 

Healing, mostly. (Falling in love for the second time in their lives.)

 

Keith wondered, in some small part of his mind, if Hunk ever planned on going back. The thought made a dry, throbbing feeling rise in his chest.

 

Hunk was laying in bed, and Keith was sitting beside him on the edge, combing through his hair. He looked tired, but they had been outside in the garden all day, tying up tomato plants with the new jute they'd bought in town yesterday, wheeling barrels of dirt to beds they'd built a week ago. Moving Keith's blackberry bushes to new grounds...very productive. He swept his fingers through the long hair splayed beneath Hunk's head on the pillow, thinking of what his life would be like when Hunk decided to leave.

 

Hunk blinked open his eyes and smiled up at Keith, reaching out to take a chunk of Keith's long dark hair between his thumb and forefinger. "You look nice with your hair over your shoulder like that, babe."

 

His voice sounded rough and deep, scratchy and tired, "You think so?"

 

"Who wouldn't? You look like a model."

 

Keith brought Hunk's hand to his lips, and kissed his knuckles. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

 

"I want this to last for the rest of my life." Hunk grasped Keith's chin delicately, and smoothed the pad of his thumb over his lips.

 

Keith smiled, "Me too."

 

"We should get married."

 

"Don't make me cry right now, Hunk-"

 

"I'm serious."

 

"You'd really marry me?"

 

"Of course I would, we've talked about it before. Remember?"

 

"Yeah I-- Of course I do, but that was so long ago, that was before...y'know..."

 

"Before what?"

 

"Before the war, and everything. Before we went through what we went through."

 

"I loved you then, and I love you now, it doesn't matter what we went through."

 

"But your family-"

 

"They already know."

 

"Lance and Pidge--"

 

" _ Keith _ ..." Hunk shifted into a sitting position, "We don't have to, I'm content the way we are, but if you said yes...I'd marry you tomorrow, I'd marry you as soon as we were able. And we could stay together, right here."

 

"You like it here...?"

 

"I love it here. I love you."

 

"Hunk..."

 

"Keith?"

 

"Ask me again."

 

"Keith..." Hunk says his name three more times, punctuated with a kiss to his cheeks, his forehead, and his lips. "Will you marry me?"

 

"Yeah," Keith kisses Hunk again, and again, whispering in the fraction of space between them. "Yeah I think I will."

 

* * *

 


End file.
